New Delhi: Claiming that the three toppers in its latest cleanliness survey had adopted environmentally "unsustainable" waste management practices, a green body on Saturday wanted the Modi government to change process of selecting clean cities.
"There is an "urgent need" to change the methodology of the 'Swachh Survekshan' survey to encourage sustainable practices such as segregation of waste at source and recycle-and-reuse", the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said in a statement.
It asserted that the top three cities as per Swachh Survekshan 2017 -- Indore, Bhopal and Vishakhapatnam -- were focussing on collecting unsegregated waste and transporting it to landfills with a minimal amount of waste being processed.
The CSE said the rules stipulated that the waste-to- energy plants should not burn mixed waste and should dump the disposal at landfills as the "least preferred option".
"It is clear that the states that have pushed for a centralised approach towards waste management -- Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh -- have been given high rankings in the Survekshan results," the CSE said, according to PTI.
"In contrast, cities working towards household-level segregation and decentralised recycling and reuse of waste have been given poor rankings in the survey", the CSE said.
According to the 'Swachh Survekshan-2017', announced by the government on Thursday., Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh were ranked as top two cleanest cities while Gonda in Uttar Pradesh had been ranked as the dirtiest city in India.
The 'Swachh Survekshan-2017' survey also ranked Bhusawal in Maharashtra as the second-last in the ranking of 434 cities.
Gujarat has the maximum of 12 cities among the top 50 clean cities, closely followed by Madhya Pradesh with 11 and Andhra Pradesh with eight.
Uttar Pradesh accounted for half of the bottom 50 cities in the cleanliness ranking.
Cities from Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Jharkhand did well, while those from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar fared poorly in the ratings.
Urban Development Ministry had launched the Swachh Survekshan 2017 on January 4. The initial deadline for citizens to submit their submissions was February 13, which was extended to February 28.
The survey ranks 434 cities across the country on cleanliness and other aspects of urban sanitation. Feedback from citizens account for 30% of the scoring with other data being provided by the municipal corporations.
Around 37 lakh citizens submitted their responses. The survey was conducted by the Quality Council of India.
Last year’s survey ranked 73 cities across the country in which 1 lakh citizens had given their feedback.
The top 10 cities are: Indore, Bhopal, Vizag, Surat, Mysore, Tiruchirapalli, New Delhi Municipal Council, Navi Mumbai, Tirupati and Vadodara
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